1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a wireless communication system. More particularly, the present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for establishing an ad-hoc mode connection between mobile terminals in a wireless communication system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Wireless Fidelity (WiFi) denotes one of Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) communication techniques, and is based on the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 standard. In a case of performing wireless communication between two mobile terminals using WiFi, two connection modes may be used. One is an infrastructure mode where a mobile terminal accesses an Access Point (AP) or a wireless router, and transmits/receives data to/from a counterpart terminal via the AP or the wireless router. The other is an ad-hoc mode where a mobile terminal directly forms a connection via a wireless channel without a connection passing through an intermediate apparatus.
According to the infrastructure mode, establishment of a connection in a mobile terminal is relatively simple and convenient. That is, a mobile terminal has only to request a connection to an accessible AP, and does not need to have detailed knowledge on establishment of a WiFi connection in the infrastructure mode. That is, all procedures for network setup are processed by an AP, i.e., a base station connected with a backbone network. On the other hand, according to the ad-hoc mode, a mobile terminal should directly process a procedure for network setup without an AP, and should directly configure parameters for network configuration. For example, a mobile terminal should directly set up a Service Set Identifier (SSID) for discriminating a network formed with a counterpart terminal, and an Internet Protocol (IP) address of the mobile terminal itself. In other words, the mobile terminal should select a proper wireless channel, search for an SSID not used in the selected service, and set an IP address.
As described above, when establishing the ad-hoc mode connection, two mobile terminals should process all procedures for establishment of the connection. In other words, a mobile terminal should be able to perform functions for establishing the ad-hoc mode. Accordingly, to support the ad-hoc mode, an operation load amount of a mobile terminal increases, and the construction of the terminal is complicated.